Appealing to the Portsmouth Council for Help

Ava’s appeal to the Portsmouth Council is a calculated failure: she asks for help against the Coterie while using the Council’s suspected weakness and possible ties to Venus to draw Venus into an ambush. The trip yields no promise of protection or immediate investigation, but it places the group’s chosen meeting location before the entire Council—and, they expect, before whoever is passing information to Venus.

Purpose and Design

The plan takes shape when Lock proposes that the group go to the Council. Ava already regards the Council as nearly useless, and the group believes at least one member has been bought off by Venus. Those liabilities become the plan’s leverage. Rather than call Venus directly or allow her to force the fugitives back into her territory, Lock suggests making a formal appeal and letting the Council know where they will be at a specified time. Venus, hearing the information through her contacts, will believe she has discovered an opportunity to strike; the group will be waiting for her at a place they have selected.

The appeal therefore has two audiences and two purposes. On its face, Ava is asking the Council to help remove the Coterie from its doorstep. Beneath that request, she and Lock are deliberately broadcasting the location of their planned confrontation. The Council’s apparent inability or unwillingness to intervene is not a flaw the plan needs to overcome: its compromised position is precisely what may cause the information to travel. The fugitives cannot dictate when Venus will attack, but they can try to make her leave the security of her own territory and come to them.

The Journey and the Meeting

The address the Council provided leads to a yacht club in New Castle. The group parks its van behind a church, screened from the road by trees and the building, rather than risk being seen arriving at the club. Ava also considers the possibility that someone might follow the van afterward; making a tail proceed on foot would make it easier to notice. Olive accompanies the group because leaving her in the van would be unsafe for both her and the vehicle. From Ava’s perspective, Olive is resourceful enough that the van itself cannot be treated as a secure place to leave her.

At the docks, a speedboat waits among the club’s sailboats. Its bored attendant says nothing, but ushers the visitors aboard and unmoors it after Ava confirms that it will take them to the Council. The meeting’s physical distance is itself revealing: the Council is reached by boat from a dock, rather than by an ordinary approach to an accessible civic office. Ava initially complains about the needless inconvenience, then recognizes that the difficulty may be intentional. A body that makes it hard for ordinary people to obtain a meeting also controls who can reach it and on what terms.

Ava’s Appeal and the Council’s Refusal

Ava relaxes her expression and tells the Council she has come with an offer. Her brief proposal is to get the Coterie off its doorstep; she then gives only the bare outline of what she needs and why. The allegations she raises include kidnapping, murder, and extortion. The Council’s response exposes the weakness of her position: Ava has no proof to put before them, and the member who challenges her credibility dismisses her account before hearing it as a case to investigate. The Inferno, that member insists, is only a nightclub, and Ava is characterized as a disgruntled subordinate inventing accusations against her boss.

Ava has lost her phone, which might have shown the many messages she sent Venus to report completed jobs. Those messages would not have helped her make a clean case: they could also reflect badly on Ava herself. Her claim consequently rests on her word, which the Council treats as insufficient. Alistair rebukes Martinique for interrupting, acknowledges that Ava has raised serious charges, and notes that Duncan’s endorsement counts for something but cannot by itself justify immediate action. He says the Council will investigate, while invoking procedure, other people waiting through proper channels, and the time such inquiries take. In practice, the group receives no swift intervention; the Council’s formal courtesy does not alter its refusal to move at once.

The Information Gets Out

Before leaving, Lock reminds Ava to keep her temper in check. Ava gives the Council a piece of paper with a temporary phone number and the address where the group has chosen to stage its confrontation, presenting it as a way to contact her if the Council changes its mind. The address is not incidental contact information: the group wants the Council to know exactly where Ava will be. After a drive and a boat ride back, Olive calls the visit a waste of time and asks why Ava did not burn the yacht. Ava replies that doing so while they were aboard would not have been sensible, and that the Council has done what the group wanted.

Ikka explains the logic to Olive: the group expected the Council not to help, and the important result is that it now knows Ava’s location. The information can pass from a Council member working for Venus to Venus herself. Sid adds why they made the visit in person rather than simply calling: they do not know which Council members are compromised, so they needed to ensure that all of them heard the message. The journey’s inconvenience and the meeting’s refusal thus become part of the mechanism, not evidence that the plan has failed.

The group’s hare-in-its-warren comparison clarifies the reversal they are engineering. Attacking Venus inside her own stronghold would leave the fugitives at a disadvantage; by making their intended whereabouts known, they hope to draw her into a less secure position. The Council has neither endorsed the accusations nor agreed to protect them, and the evidence does not confirm that Venus receives the message. What the appeal does establish is the trap’s necessary condition: every Council member has been exposed to the location, including any informant, while the group remains responsible for preparing to meet the attack on its own terms.